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"The state offered a one-time chunk of money to counties to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables for low-income seniors instead of using a voucher system that has not worked well in the past."

"Low-income Wayne County residents age 60 and older who qualify can receive a free monthly box of supplemental food by pre-registering at one of two sessions this coming week. The Richmond Senior Community Center, in partnership with Gleaners Community Food Program, RSVP and the Area 9 In-Home & Community Services Agency, is starting this month to offer the Community Supplemental Food Program that serves low-income seniors."

"If the Iowa City Community School District passes the proposed plan to diversify schools, it will join more than 80 districts across the nation that have responded to research on student achievement by giving more students the chance to attend mixed-income schools. Research shows that while students' own socioeconomic backgrounds have a big effect on their achievement, so do the socioeconomic backgrounds of their peers. Numerous sources - including the famous 1966 Coleman Report, data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and a 2010 meta-analysis by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte - show that poor students at mixed-income schools do better than poor students at high-poverty schools."

"This entire testing mania came about because children from poverty were not succeeding in school as well as middle-class children. So, without research or analysis, politicians decided that the problem was teachers. They decided that if we test the children and publish the scores, it will shame teachers into doing a better job and prompt the public to demand better. For a decade now we have tried it, and it hasn't worked. The gap between kids from poverty and the middle class remains, but the aftermath has been disastrous."

"Teachers who got bad-performance ratings in the past school year were likelier to be teaching in high-poverty schools or in schools with high percentages of black, Hispanic or low-achieving students, a new analysis found. The StudentsFirstNY report on the roughly 3 percent of teachers who were rated unsatisfactory' - known as a U-rating' - for the 2011-12 school year found that they were distributed unequally throughout the system."

"LePage's first two-year budget, introduced two years ago, targeted the state's welfare programs more heavily. It allowed the state to cut off food stamps, or TANF benefits, to drug felons convicted within the past 20 years who failed a series of drug tests. The state, however, hasn't implemented that provision of the budget, citing potential implementation costs and the potential that courts won't allow drug testing as a condition for receiving welfare benefits. Apart from the budget proposal, the LePage administration is proposing to prohibit convicted drug felons from receiving TANF benefits."

"None should be able to sleep at night knowing that high-poverty schools, which employ 45% of the city's teachers, are stuck with 54% of the instructors who received unsatisfactory ratings in the 2011-12 school year. At low-poverty schools, where 15% of the teaching force works, just 7% got U ratings last year."

"Poverty among schoolchildren in Kansas and Missouri is on the rise, according to statistics from the National School Lunch Program. Administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the program tracks student eligibility for free or reduced-priced meals offered to low-income families."

"According to the U.S. Department of Education, the National School Lunch program, which provides free or reduced-price meals to children of low-income families, experienced steady expansion in Massachusetts between 2006 and 2011. As of the close of the 2010/2011 academic year, some 34.2 percent of the state's K-12 students were enrolled in the free and reduced-price lunch program, compared to 28.9 percent in the 2006/2007 academic year."

"Gov. Jerry Brown will give more than $2 billion extra to K-12 districts next school year and again ask lawmakers to direct more funding to impoverished students and English learners in his budget plan today, according to education sources familiar with the proposal."

"Harrison is a traditional American folk musician, storyteller and dance caller, and for the past year he has visited the Tubman Center courtesy of the Howard County Arts Council's Head Start in Art program, which provides hands-on experiences in the arts for the county's low-income families. The program began in 2000 in conjunction with the Ellicott City Head Start Center and expanded to the Tubman Center last year."

"In the Bridge Magazine analysis, the school had the largest value-added matrix (VAM) in Genesee County. Bridge used the VAM to determine its 2012 Academic State Champs. Bridge Magazine is celebrating schools that are finding ways to push learning through the socioeconomic ceiling."